Dark Crime Fiction

Reporter Freya Sinclair has always known she was different. While waiting on the outcome of an autism assessment, Freya uproots her life in Glasgow, quitting her job at one of Scotland’s top broadsheets and taking a local beat in her childhood home of Orkney. But her plans for a quiet life are shattered when human remains are exhumed by a winter storm on Orkney’s wild Atlantic coast. The identity of the bones opens old wounds in the islands, and sheds light on a darker truth nobody wants to accept.

Bunny McGarry has finally got a lead in his mission to find the Sisters of the Saint, but the lead, one Father Gabriel de Marcos, isn’t willing to play ball. Desperate times call for desperate measures and Bunny has to put the padre under surveillance with a little help from some old friends. Father Gabriel runs a boxing club at the bad end of the Bronx, battling to keep kids out of gangs - noble, thankless work. Thing is, saints don’t typically have assassins sent after them. What sins are hidden in the padre’s mysterious past?

Life at sea isn't always tranquil. Anchored off a small uninhabited cay in the Bahamas, Chase witnesses another boat being boarded. Before he can react, the skipper of the other vessel is kidnapped. Chase rushes over to find the skipper's teenaged daughter hiding in a locker.

FBI Agent Ella Dark, 29, is given her big chance to achieve her life’s dream: to join the Behavioral Crimes Unit. Ella’s hidden obsession of gaining an encyclopedic knowledge of serial killers has led to her being singled out for her brilliant mind, and invited to join the big leagues. But this time Ella finds herself in a cat and mouse chase with no way out, and she must wonder if she is hunting—or the one who is hunted.

Alex Bledsoe’s fantasy novels have drawn rave reviews for their ingenious blend of classic fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction. Now Bledsoe returns with an all-new tale of intrigue and murder.

Rex Valentino is my enemy. He has the power to wave a hand and make all my family problems go away. In return, he only requires one thing: my complete surrender. Caterina Alfera, an angel lost in a world of beasts. I didn’t ask for her. Destiny brought her to me. And now I can’t let her leave. She’s mine to keep.

After one too many terrifying encounters, Millie Masters sets up a hotline for women who feel unsafe walking home alone at night: Message M. But very quickly she realises that there’s much more to be done to help the women who call in. Because the men just do it again the next night, and the next, and the next… And when her own sister is assaulted on a night out, the temptation to take the law into her own hands becomes too much to resist. Because M can also stand for murder.

Only days after a corrupt election and brutal street war, one last bloodthirsty game has begun. The players? The 22 most powerful, notorious people in New Reynes. After realizing they have no choice but to play, Enne Scordata and Levi Glaisyer are desperate to forge new alliances and bargain for their safety. But while Levi offers false smiles and an even falser peace to the city’s politicians, Enne must face a world where her true Mizer identity has been revealed...and any misstep could turn deadly.

Ari Thór Arason is a local policeman whose tumultuous past and uneasy relationships with the villagers in an idyllically quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland - where no one locks their doors - continue to haunt him. The peace of this close-knit community is shattered by the murder of a policeman - shot at point-blank range in the dead of night in a deserted house. With a killer on the loose and the dark Arctic winter closing in, it falls to Ari Thór to piece together a puzzle that involves tangled local politics, a compromised new mayor, and a psychiatric ward.

After a long and arduous COVID-19 quarantine, Serge A. Storms is fully vaccinated and ready to hit the road. Along with his condo neighbors, he cooks up a wild plan to celebrate in true Serge fashion: each week, they rent a shuttle van and head out for funky Florida road trips and some serious revelry.

Luce O’Brien is the only daughter of an Irish mob boss. She always knew her virginity would be sold to the highest bidder, and had prepared herself for that eventuality. However, she was not prepared for the monster she was promised to, nor the dark prince who would turn her life upside down. When all is lost and her crew is at stake, Lucinda O’Brien must fulfill her duty to her family. She is given to an Irish boss in Harlem to marry—his virgin bride.

New Year's Eve should be a time for celebrating. A chance to spend time with loved ones and look forward to the year ahead. For DSI William Lorimer, however, this New Year's Eve will be one that he will never forget. Called to a house after gunshots are reported, the carnage he finds there will have a powerful impact on his life - leaving him questioning his future with Police Scotland.

Riktor doesn’t like the way the policeman comes straight into the house without knocking. He doesn’t like the arrogant way he observes his home. The policeman doesn’t tell him why he’s there, and Riktor doesn’t ask. Because he knows he’s guilty of a terrible crime. But it turns out that the policeman isn’t looking for a missing person. He is accusing Riktor of something totally unexpected. Riktor doesn’t have a clear conscience, but this is a crime he certainly didn’t commit.

Drugged and kidnapped from his Edinburgh home, the realisation soon dawns that he’s been locked inside a shipping container - but what Bart doesn’t know is that he’s now heading for France, where his unspeakable fate is already sealed.... DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach are working on separate cases that soon collide as it becomes clear that the men and women being shipped to France are being traded for women trafficked into Scotland. With so many lives at stake, it seems an impossible task - but there’s no option of failure when Bart and so many others will soon be dead...

Dr. Blair Harbour, once a wealthy, respected pediatric surgeon, is now an ex-con down on her luck. She's determined to keep her nose clean and win back custody of her son. But when her former cellmate begs for help to find her missing daughter, Blair is compelled to put her new-found freedom on the line. Detective Jessica Sanchez has always had a difficult relationship with the LAPD. And her inheritance of a multi-million dollar mansion as a reward for catching a killer has just made her police enemy number one.

A successful entrepreneur in the mushroom industry, Jaakko Kaunismaa is a man in his prime. At just 37 years of age, he is shocked when his doctor tells him that he's dying. What is more, the cause is discovered to be prolonged exposure to toxins; in other words, someone has slowly but surely been poisoning him. Determined to find out who wants him dead, Jaakko embarks on a suspenseful roller-coaster journey full of unusual characters, bizarre situations and unexpected twists.

Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of Kalfshamarvik. Did she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop? With winter closing in and the snow falling relentlessly, Ari Thor Arason discovers that the victim's mother and young sister also lost their lives in this same spot, 25 years earlier....

In a deserted tenement in an occupied city, two dead bodies lie on a dusty floor as if they have fallen out of the air. One corpse is cut in half, the other is utterly unmarked. One is human, the other isn’t. The city of Ambergris is half ruined, rotten, its population controlled by narcotics, internment camps, and acts of terror. But its new masters want this case closed, urgently. Detective John Finch has just one week to solve it or be sent to the camps. With no ID for the victims, no clues, no leads, and precious little hope, Finch’s fate hangs in the balance.

Joey Lucrazi ratted on his entire family, and now because of it, I'm forced to live in fear of retaliation. I count down the days in witness protection until I'm caught, but it turns out reality is worse than imagination when Leandro Rigiano—the most ruthless hitman in the five families—comes knocking. Six feet of tattooed muscle stomps into our quiet house and takes his revenge, revealing that the rat I married also took the life of Leandro's wife. Now I'm his prisoner, and he's not at all what I expect.

As a shaky truce between suburban gangsters starts to unravel, schlubby civilian Scott Clark has other things on his mind: if he can't afford to buy out his ex-father-in-law, Scott's about to lose the only house he's ever called home. In the red-hot urban housing market, he doesn't have a chance - until he and his best friends take the desperate measure of staging a fake drive-by shooting on the property to push down the asking price. But then Scott's mobster-posturing stunt attracts the attention of the real criminals.